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From John Wright's Telling God's Story

"The present situation cannot be beneficial for the church. Preaching has largely ceased to incorporate individuals into the concerns created by the Christian Scriptures. Instead, preaching has become the application of an individualistic, therapeutic biblical language to contemporary concerns or disembodied calls to social justice. The church in North America has become adept at translating the Scriptures into the narratives that already shape the lives of believers and nonbelievers alike. . . . The biblical text becomes translated into a therapeutic experience within the life of the individual. Yet it seems that such an approach misses the crucial question, a question necessary to maintain the faithful witness of the church across time. The question is not, How can we make the Scriptures relevant to individuals in need of therapy? but, How do we translate human lives into the biblical narrative to live as part of the body of Christ in the world?"

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Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the day I heard and accepted God's call to vocational ministry. Years later I was ordained at Real Life Church, where I currently serve, and as part of the ordination ceremony I offered promises to those present about what I considered myself called to be and do. I think this is a good occasion to offer those promises to the wider community of whoever it is that reads my blog. I will offer them exactly as I wrote them at the time.

As a minister of the Gospel,

I promise first and foremost to die to self and seek the glory of God in all that I think, say and do, giving no regard for my own status or recognition, embodying the words of Jesus himself: “Not to be served, but to serve.”

I promise to never stop meditating on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, so that my living and teaching of the Christian life will be based on who he actually was and is.

I promise to pursue a life of character, modeling Jesus’ intimacy with and obedience to God, seeking to embody the virtues of faith and hope, love and joy, peace and gentleness, patience and generosity, humility and discipline.

I promise to regularly engage in practices that will create space for the Holy Spirit to work in my life so that I might grow as a holy and faithful man and minister of the gospel.

I promise to always critique my own assumptions—theological, philosophical, and pastoral—so that my care for individuals and communities will be based as closely as possible on truth.

I promise to always tell the truth with courage and grace, neither ignoring truth’s difficult demands nor overlooking its promise of hopefulness for the world and the people in it.

I promise to labor for justice and peace, caring for and defending those who cannot care for or defend themselves, always modeling the nonviolent but powerful love that was displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross.

I promise to imitate the attitude of the Apostle Paul, considering my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying, in both word and deed, to the good news that God has acted to save and transform the world.

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I recently read an incredibly important book (!) for understanding how the church has gotten to where we are today, as well as what choices faces us as we approach tomorrow: Craig Carter's Rethinking Christ and Culture. The whole book is a re-analysis of what H. Richard Niebuhr called "the enduring problem" - how Christ (and/or) the chrch relates to culture. Regardless of whether you've ever heard of him, Niebuhr has shaped the way all of us think - at least those of us who are Christian and American and have lived any time from 1950 to today. In 1951 he wrote a book called Christ and Culture, which was an instant classic and has been read as a textbook in colleges and seminaries ever since. In this book Niebuhr laid out five options for how Christ has been and can be related to culture by his followers: Christ of culture, Christ against culture, Christ above culture, Christ and culture in paradox, and Christ transforming culture. Among other things, this work popularized the idea that pacifist Christians can only remain pacifist at teh expense of responsible engagement with society.

Carter's book is a thorough critique of Niebuhr's work; Carter's main gripe is that Niebuhr fails to account for the underlying assumption between all five types: Carter calls "Christendom," which basically refers to a world where the church functions as the religious arm of the state as part of a unified system in which both are seen as partners in God's efforts to run the world. I'm oversimplifying horribly, and I'll try to offer a better analysis after the other books I promised to blog through, but for now I just want to mention a fe specific things. Oh, let me say one more general thing about the book first: Carter locates the dividing line between faithful and unfaithful Christian approaches to culture precisely at the church's willingness (or nonwillingness) to engage in state-sponsored violence of any kind. Very interesting.

In this and the next few posts I'll discuss a few specific points Carter made that line up exactly with thoughts I've been having lately. It was actually eerie at one point, when Carter made the very same claim I tried to articulate in the last post: "Like Jesus, we are called to live lives that make no sense if there is no such thing as the resurrection of the dead" (208). I know, crazy! :) Let me say again that I think this is absolutely crucial to following Jesus faithfully. How we talk about God (theology), how we aim to be good and do right (ethics), how we lead churches, how we pray, how we get and stay married (or don't get married at all), how we raise children (whether ours or someone else's) and everything else in our lives must be founded upon, line up with, and draw its resources from the central reality of resurrection. Stating it bluntly, to the extent that our lives and choices fail to require resurrection in order to make sense, they should not be described as "Christian."

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I want to end our week by drawing your attention to a powerful passage in one of Paul’s letters. Take a look at 2 Corinthians 1.3-7:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

I have a tough question: What’s the main idea in this paragraph? Okay, so it’s not that tough. Paul is pretty clearly concerned with comfort. More specifically, Paul wants to encourage those who are suffering by reminding them that God can use even their pain to further his mission in the world.

The words “encourage” or “strengthen” are actually better translations of the Greek word used here than “comfort.” Comfort sounds soft and cuddly, protected and serene. The word Paul uses is parakaleo. It has to parts: kaleo, which means “to call,” and para, which means “beside.” When you put the two together, the word means something like “to call to my side.”

Picture a man or woman who is exhausted. Not just tired, but weary. It hasn’t just been one of those days, but one of those months or years or lifetimes, or at least that’s how it feels. Nothing is going right, and they don’t know if one more step is even possible. Now picture an old grandfather coming up to our friend, placing his arm around her shoulder, drawing her to his side, and saying, “You may be done for on your own. But you’re not on your own. We are together, and together we can do this. Together we can move forward. Together we can endure.”

That’s what I think of when I hear this word parakaleo. And when I think of that grandfather, I see you. Every one of you.

I see you being the comforter, the encourager, the strengthener, the one who puts your arm around the hurting, the lonely, the depressed, the poor, the oppressed, the anxious, the lost, the scared, the confused, and the weary.

“But wait!” you might be saying. “I can’t be the comforter. I am the one hurting or lonely or depressed or poor or oppressed; I am the anxious, the lost, the scared, the confused, and the weary.”

That’s the point. You are wounded. You have suffered, and perhaps are suffering right now. We are all wounded. We have all suffered. If we did not share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, neither would our comfort abound through Christ. If we were not wounded, we would not be able to heal.

As it is – as we are – we are healers. We are wounded healers.

The good news is not just that we can be free, but that we can participate in the liberation of others. The good news is not just what God has done for us and in us, but what God wants to do through us.

We’ve spent most of our time during this series focusing on ourselves. That’s not always bad, if we do it in the right way. In fact, we’re going to continue talking about how to get our own lives in order (albeit in community with others). But there comes a time to ask how each of us can focus on one another; there comes a time to attend to those who are not receiving attention.

So let me ask you a few simple questions: Who in your life is hurting? Who in your life is lonely or depressed? Who in your world is poor or oppressed? Who in your life is scared? Who in your life is weary? These questions are not hypothetical. Picture someone in your life who is not doing well. Think of someone in our world who needs our help.

Now imagine ways we can comfort and strengthen these people. Imagine something you can do to bring healing and peace to a wounded and broken world. And as you imagine, and as you go and do these things, remember your woundedness. Remember that you are not the world’s Savior, but merely a fellow journeyer; remember that you’ll always be a wounded healer.

People don’t want to know you’re perfect. People want to see that you’re beaten and bruised and yet you’re still standing and moving forward. People want to believe there is a way through captivity and bondage to freedom and liberation. People want to know that even though they are wounded, they too can not only be healed but heal.

As we continue to talk about freedom from our past, from our pain, from our addictions, remember how it’s all supposed to end: with each of us, wounded but nevertheless walking on, participating in God’s great mission to heal the world.

Now go! Go and perform some act of kindness, of compassion, of healing. Offer your time and your energy and your story. Find someone in need and help them – talk to them, listen to them, serve them. Find someone hurting and become a healing presence in their life. Go, experience and share the liberating joy of bringing life and salvation into the world in the name of Jesus, the one who brings life and salvation to us all.

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